Session 08
Game date April 23, 2011 Game notes +6 XP from last session. Game log July 3rd After the attack. * Still the chaos of the evening. The avatar has floated off into the sky with three of our expeditioners. None of the tribesmen managed to get away with our people. Our people and the Nikak (dragging in some additional people with bows) have cut off their escape. The Nikak are grabbing and being into submission the native assailants that they drug into camp. The Nikak approach Moore to speak with him. * Chip Hooper is dead by stray gun shot. About half the camp is injured to some extent. The expedition crew primarily have arrow wounds, and most others have bludgeon wounds. One of the camp crew has a strange puncture wound (might just be from getting caught on a twig or something). We're missing Evelyn Grey, Timothy Cartier (the botanist's assistant), Douglas Orgelfinger (the herpetologist's assistant), and one of the camp crew Tomas Lopez. (We think it was three people that got carried away by the beast.) * Lynch watched the Nikak and Mr. Moore talk for a while. He asks after what the fuck is going on. Moore explains that the Nikak caught several people in the jungle. They're taking the prisoners back to their side camp. Also, one of our party ran off into the jungle alone, and he's asked them to track him and bring him back. He thinks the people are called the Xavante. Owen wants to make sure they're dead, and Moore is content to leave them in the hands of the Nikak. * Starkweather gives a speech about how we've managed to overcome the attack and mentioning his plans to track down the beast that absconded with our people to its lair to recover them. * As the Nikak are dragging off their captives, they are stripping them of weapons and cutting off their necklaces. They are wearing green medallions (like the ones we've seen). ** Clayton asks the Nikak about the medallions. They say that it's a very bad symbol. One of a being that in the stone that tells them to do things for "no good reason." Not for tribe, food, or honor. To attack, to grow, to clear the jungle. They say these are not the Suya; the Suya are very far. All tribes who carry the green stone are crazy. They don't know many pink stone tribes, but they are all crazy too (and some violent). They invite Dr. Russel to join in their ritual for the victors, and of course, he can't resist. ** Owen follows up on the Sorensons and their shared headaches. Luo and he notices the way the tribesmen all screamed and collapsed when the beast was injured. Luo starts to notice the headaches and how people with the green stone had headaches. ** He tries to warn people, but most of the people scoff at him. By the time, he gets to Dr. Russel, he drops the supernatural angle down to just a bad feeling about them, and he convinces Dr. Russel to keep the medallions on the sled. (He does so, not because of supernatural elements but in sensitivity to people traumatized by events, which he thinks includes Luo.) * Dr. Russel partakes in the ritual. Lots of singing and dancing. Lots of bloodletting of the captives. They do butcher and eat parts of them and offer some to Dr. Russel who politely declines. They are a little put off by him not participating. However, this IS a form of torture, even if they are unconscious, and Dr. Russel becomes a little more hardened to violence. July 4th * In the middle of the night, we all dream. Clayton dreams of magic rituals. Luo dreams of conquest, war, and chaos until he is swallowed by the earth and returned to the jungle. Owen dreams of scouting the jungle and using magic to control the beasts to slay threats. Thomas dreams of piloting a giant robot to bring order to the wild and wakes to the sensation of being shot. * Matheson wakes screaming and clutching his leg. There's no hole in the pants leg, but it hurts terribly when he probes it. Louie LaRoche, who was standing, also yells and falls to the ground, clutching his ankle. Other screams start popping up over the camp, and other people start clutching other parts. Clayton gets bit shaking the ants off of him. * Pretty much everyone gets bit, save Joan, the archeologists, the Sorensons, and Moore. In addition to extreme pain, everyone feels nausea, shock, weakness, and shakiness in the muscles. Next to no real damage from the bites. * After about an hour, the Nikak arrive with the missing camp worker Tomas Lopez. He panicked during the violence and missed the beast and the ants. * Starkweather asks the Sorensons to track down the beast since nearly everyone else is incapacitated. Moore wants the Nikak to go with them, but they are disinclined to follow the trail. They do not know what it is, just that it is bad. The Sorensons follow the trail for a bit, but the trail goes cold after a while. Starkweather is upset and yells at them for a while. * By night, most of us have recovered from the ant bites. A few people are starting to get infection in their wounds. The one who got a puncture wound has a fever now. The puncture site is inflamed, and the ring of the wound itself is white while the surrounding skin is red. Relatively little blood and a scab inside. It's about half the diameter of a cigarette. Dr. Green has already cleaned the wound. * Nothing major happens over the night. Everyone is pretty exhausted, but there's fresh insect irritations the next night. The same people who weren't bit by ants aren't bothered by bugs in the night. July 5th * Starkweather wants to try again with an expedition to find the missing people where the Sorensons failed now that "we have our best trackers" up an healthy. Since the beast fled to the NE, we just follow with the whole camp. We find the area where the trail fades. Starkweather finds a bit of ichor to follow past that point and continues in that direction. It turns out that he's a reasonably good tracker. * Towards the end of the day, we go about an hour without a significant sign. SW says that we should try to climb a tree to get a better vantage point. Many of us try, but only Luo makes it up. He can't go much higher without specialized equipment, so he comes back down... the hard way thanks to a failed roll. This gives him a mild concussion. * Starkweather throws a mild tantrum when we can't track the beast, and after Moore calms him down and announces that we'll continue with our journey. * We move on, and most people improve over the next week. Cruz, the one who had a fever, recovers. Sleep and pack weight issues tire out Luo, Thomas, and Clayton. All of us develop minor sicknesses. Owen (who recovered his amulet after the bullet ant incident) has to make another Soul check and fails it. * Clayton overhears from conversations between Moore and the Nikak that one of their people has gone missing. They're the ones bringing it up to Moore. They were spread out scouting, and one of their number did not report back. Moore seems worried, expresses condolences, and asks what they suspect did it. They think it might be ambush from a hostile tribe, and they consider him lost. ** Moore tells the rest of the camp that the upcoming territory may have hostile natives and that everyone should be prepared. * Another week passes, with no attacks. Hidalgo Cruz has been having nightmares and waking people up in the middle of the night. Something about being enclosed in the darkness; he can't remember what. The wound is mostly healed over with scar tissue and taut. There's no much pain but a little twinge of heat deep inside. * Another of the Nikak has gone missing. (Down to 6 of 8.) They are a little concerned. Moore asks them if they'd like to camp with us, but they decline. When Starkweather is informed that another has gone missing, he gets blustery again. He says that there's some sort of depredation amongst our guides, so he wants to follow along with their scouts and have people double up with them. He brings himself, the Sorensons, Lynch, Igor Jijikine, and Early Masters. * Luo notices a strange creature skittering in the canopy. It looks like something between a snake and a spider. It has a bulbous body with a lot of legs with a long tail and neck with a reptilian head. It's about 40' away. I bring over a guide to see what it is. He has no idea, but think it looks very, very wrong. The guide and Lynch both try to shoot it down. ** The creature disappears from the branch it's on. There's a loud call of birds squawking, and people get startled and draw guns on Owen. We calm people down, and the guide says that he hit it, and it won't get far. The guide and Owen spot it in the tree. The thing is transfixed by some sort of arrow buried in a tree and has its head blown off. Dr. Russel climbs up and gets it. ** The creature's blood is a black ichor, its skin is stiff and scaled, and it has 12 articulated legs and a body that tapers to the neck and tail. The legs are kind of endoskeletal looking. ** At some point after some discussion of preserving the thing, Clayton talks to Starkweather about it, and they end up swapping some stories about odd things they've eaten. SW: And so you just stick the stick into the termite's nest. Pull it out, and eat them right off of it. A good source of protein and a little nutty. Squirms a little. Brendan: Hey! Pinocchio died of that. July 19th * Luo and Thomas are sick and feverish. * The pairs go off into the jungle to scout while everyone goes into the jungle. ** Owen hears a gunshot wound and heads over with his guide and eventually finds Starkweather's body, littered with arrows. One Sorenson brother and his guide are already there. Starkweather's gun is there and has been fired. There's signs that something dragged him or someone else away. One of the Sorensons says that there are probably 6 or more out there by the arrows. ** Owen and two of the guides follow the trail for 25' before it disappears. Owen checks the trees for broken branches. He and the Nikak fail to find any trail. Category:Session Logs